Two-Heel Drive

This is a first: meeting not one but two Two-Heel Drive readers for the first time on the same day. I decided to tag along with Mike Wimble’s FOMFOK gang because they were heading out to my all-time favorite Bay Area park: Sunol Wilderness. Yes, it’s madness to go there in August, but we had nice breezes, relatively mild heat and gorgeous, smog-free skies. Mostly made up for the punishing climbs up out of the Sunol canyon.

First, the readers:

Beth, who comments as Baychic around here (note you must be a Xanga member to see her page), signed up with FOMFOK a few months back and decided it was time to go along on one of Mike’s hikes before getting booted from the list (Mike is decent and generous to a fault but he is a stern custodian of his e-mail list: if you don’t come and hike, you get bounced). Beth is tall and thin, which I always translate as “will stand zero chance of keeping up with her on the trail.”

Ron, AKA Grey, was the first guy to arrive after me at the Sunol parking lot. He told me he found Mike’s group from a link here. He lets his geek flag fly at this copious compendium of links. He even has a South Bay hiking blog.

Enough introductions. On to the hike. Fearless leader Mike apparently had not endured any significant bodily discomfort of late, so he opted to go straight to Flag Hill, one of the meanest ascents at Sunol. Actually, “mean” is a bit unkind. It’s steep, but it’s also a nice single-track trail with abundant views on the way up.

That’s Donna Jones throwing her arms wide for the world. Or something. She covers Watsonville for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and is an old pal of ex-Sentinel reporter Dan White of “Cactus Eaters” fame. We have the same boss, ultimately, and we often talk shop on FOMFOK hikes. But not with other people around, it just bores them silly.

Mike, with his back to the spectacular Sunol backdrop.

My latest thing is: get people in the picture. I started with this excellent Flag Hill Trail snag.

Axis of Evil, meet Nexus of Niceness. (Mike with FOMFOK co-chair Kathy).

Here we are at the top of the Flag Hill Trail. Approaching hikers ask us “which way to Little Yosemite.” Only, about three miles back the way you came.

Hikechic flashes her winning smile at the Flag Hill Rocks. Kristen, right, is always trying to talk Mike into taking longer, more strenuous hikes. Mike always explains that he hikes for fun, not strain.

Dirk studies his map at the Flag Hill rocks.

The other Ron on our hike, adjusting his shades at the moment, is a former San Francisco State biology professor (evolution is his niche, as I recall). When Mike and I broke out our iPhones on one rest stop, he noted “humanity has gone from hunting and gathering to pointing and clicking.” OK, you had to be there.

Ron munches an apple at a bench near one end of the Eagle View Trail, which dives down into a canyon along a nasty-steep hillside where one slip will plunge you into a tangle of nasty brambles that will probably save your life but make you wish you were dead. It’s one of my favorite Sunol trails.

Mike needs dramatic imagery for his annual hike DVD. He’s still working on the 2007 edition, so this one might take awhile to see the light of day.

So those are this week’s highlights. More links:

I made a snap judgment Wednesday to check out Mission Peak at sunset, which I had been fixing to get ready to do for ages. Winehiker Russ loves to lead this hike (just under six miles with 2,000 feet of elevation gain), and now I see why. It’s the same ol’ sweaty slog to the top, but the fading light casts a glow on the hill that you never see at any other time of day; it even causes shade in a few places, imagine that. The sunset itself its just OK on a cloudless night — it can be spectacular on partly cloudy days — but the light show gets much better as the sky turns from purple to black. And if you pick a full moon night, you can stroll down without a headlamp.

Yeah, I took pictures:

Even the cow pictures come out better this time of the evening.

Even with the hills pretty much browned over, the peak looks better in the evening because it’s the only time when the sun illuminates the rocky sections just below the summit.

Speaking of rocks, these were very photogenic in this light.

I took this just a few minutes before the sun fell below the horizon. I planned on taking 90 minutes to reach the top exactly at sunset but didn’t calculate the need for picture taking and rest breaks. Even with my timing off by a few minutes, I still had some nice shots.

Fellow hikers goof off with their cameras. There were about a dozen people up there.

Full moon rises over the Diablo range.

More summit shadows.

Really liked this one.

Lights of Alameda County looking north toward San Francisco begin to flicker in the fading light.

Shot this with a 15-second time exposure, with the camera resting on a fence post near the cattle guard high on the peak.

Another 15-second exposure, facing in the opposite direction, with some Photoshop tweaks to lighten it up a tad.

The walk back is the best part — with the sounds of night creatures raising their usual after-dark ruckus. I even heard a couple coyotes yelping back and forth at each other; a bit scary at first till you realize it’s not somebody screaming bloody murder up the trail.

As is always the case at Mission Peak, you need to be ready for a cold, windy experience at the summit, even in the summertime. It was pleasant Wednesday but it can be all over the map. Just take a jacket along.

More Mission Peak links:

• My park profile, with hard, harder and hardest hike suggestions.
• My previous Mission Peak hikes.
• My Flickr pix | everybody else’s.
• Bay Area Hiker’s Mission Peak page.
• Winehiker Russ’s Mission Peak moonlight hike.

A Tri-Valley real estate blogger mentions taking his family to Coyote Hills for a sunset hike. The guy won’t be writing any breathless accounts for Outside, but the post does offer some ideas on getting the kids out of the house.

I’ll always have a soft spot for Coyote Hills because it was the local for my first paid article about hiking in the Bay Area. Sometimes it stinks from all the dank, shallow water and the hiking’s barely much of a challenge, but I always manage to enjoy the sea-breeze-in-your-face vibe at Coyote Hills. Also: lots of waterfowl to watch.

Here’s an interesting Coyote Hills outing:

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Murietta Falls musings:

The thing to do when you’re already hiking 12 miles with over 4,300 feet of uphill climb is to tag a few more on because the view’s a little better.

Another thing to do is stand in water with with confidence because your boots are waterproof, then finding out otherwise when you’ve got seven more miles of hiking ahead of you.

Yet another thing to do is play hooky from work — I didn’t, but I met a couple guys who did. I did get a somewhat similar sensation, though, when I was driving into Livermore and seeing 19,473 cars lined up in the other direction, presumably all to their jobs somewhere else. Poor wretches.

Because it’s my blog and I can toss common sense on the breeze, I can wait till now to tell you that the water’s raging at Murietta Falls. There’s so much water in the creek at Williams Gulch that you’ll have a hard time getting across with your feet dry. Sadly, there’s no rain in the forecast this week so the flow will probably be quite a bit slower next weekend. But the chance to do the hike on a sunny day might be worth it — also, I saw the first hints of wildflowers here and there; the poppies could be poppin’ soon.

For those unfamiliar with the pleasures of hiking to Murietta Falls: It’s about six miles one way from the Lichen Bark Picnic Area at Del Valle Regional Park near Livermore. Getting there entails one epic climb on from the parking lot to Rocky Ridge, then going downhill to Williams Gulch, then slogging up for another epic climb on the Big Burn (steep, yes, but also one of the prettiest stretches of single-track trail in the East Bay.) After that you go back down a few hundred feet in a mile to the Falls, including a harrowing bit of iffy footing just before you reach the base.

Then you go back the way you came. A side trip along the Rocky Ridge Trail adds about a mile each way, but you avoid a really steep patch of trail and get some great scenery.

So enough gabbing, let’s look at some pictures:

This is Stromer Spring, on the way to the Rocky Ridge Trail. There are gallons of fresh mountain springwater flowing out of the tap. (I took a taste; it was delish.)

The first several miles looked out over a bunch of this. We did get sunshine later, fortunately.

Water gushes at Williams Gulch.

Now, let me introduce Keith, with whom I hiked off and on most of the day. He was at Lichen Bark when I arrived and we headed up the hill, chatting about work, life and stuff. Of course like everybody else on the planet he’s a much faster hiker going uphill, so we parted ways for most of the climb up the Big Burn, then hiked together to the falls. He’s a geocacher, and that’s a geocache log he’s writing in. That’s the falls behind him.

Murietta Falls in all their glory. I was standing here in ankle-deep water thinking my Neos Overboots were watertight, then all the sudden my feet felt the cool reality of a leak, which meant walking back with soggy feet. Live and learn, I guess.

I had no luck getting cool pictures of the falls — there’s just too much light here in the middle of the day to get those cool slow-shutter-speed time exposure shots that make the water all flow together; gotta be here real early or real late. Might be a good excuse for an overnighter at Stewart’s Camp.

After lunch, it was back up the hill.

Trees reflected in a puddle. I know, reflection shots are not that clever, but I liked how this one came out.

Wildlife sighting!

The blue sky started coming out on the way back down the Big Burn. Finally.

Got some cool clouds on the way back to Rocky Ridge.

And a few more…

And a few more.

One final thought on the falls: Even after four days of rain they are not spectacular. Many hikers feel let down after hiking all that way. My thinking is: this is an epic hike, one of the toughest in the region. The virtue of completing it is its own reward; the falls are eye candy. Hike for the hike, not the view of water running down a narrow cataract in the middle of nowhere.

A couple Murietta Falls links:

East Bay Parks’ Del Valle Regional Park page

Kevin Gong’s Murietta hike.

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My days off are Sunday-Monday these days, which means I get a trails-to-myself day at least once a week if I want it.

Today strikes me as perfect one to check out Murietta Falls on the Ohlone Trail: a day with no rain in the forecast coming right after a major storm system has just blown through. The falls run only after major rainfall — and this year the ground was so dry after last year’s dry winter that most of the previous rains got soaked up by thirsty earth. But by now the run-off ought to be pretty strong, and the hills pretty green, and the lingering clouds over the hills creating photogenic scenes left and right.

Of course it’s 12 miles of hell out and back to get there, but some things simply must be done.

Pix & blather tonight.

For those who haven’t been reading along since the summer of 2004, here’s a look back at the day I figured out I could be a hiker.

About three-quarters of the way up, I’m starting to tire out. I walk five minutes and my heart is beating like mad, so I have to stop and let it calm back down. My calve muscles have gotten used to the strain but the rest of my body is telling me: stop this nonsense now, dammit.

But I round a bend at the top of a ridge and the sight gives me fresh inspiration: it’s a view of the back side of Mission Peak that I would never have seen if I hadn’t made the climb. Makes me realize why people get hooked on hiking. The view is different up here.

I turn to my right and the summit is in clear view, maybe a quarter-mile away. “You’re almost there,” says a beefy guy who passes me on the way up. Must be my heartbeat is audible to pedestrians.

I’m probably been up there dozens of times since then. It’s like that old greasy spoon you always go back to even when you know there’s 25 better places to eat along the way.

Posted today at www.mercurynews.com

A few hours at Mission Peak Regional Preserve might make you wonder if the United Nations has a West Coast hiking club.

Fremont’s signature peak attracts people from everywhere. I’ve chatted with hikers from India, China, Taiwan, Russia, Mexico and even remote, exotic places like Livermore.

You don’t come to Mission Peak expecting solitude: the parking lot’s like a shopping mall on weekends. You come to meet interesting people and to stand on the summit. There’s no easy (or even moderate) route to the top - it’s nearly 2,200 feet above the trail head - but the view up there is worth every step.

Winter’s the best time to do Mission Peak because a layer of gravel keeps the main trail from turning to muck after it rains.

I don’t go on many hikes that make me glad I’m done and wished I’d chosen wiser, but this was one of them.

I’d hiked Mission Peak Regional preserve from every direction, save one: the parking lot at Ohlone College in Fremont’s Mission district. It has one distinct advantage: a fairly gradual, four-mile route to the summit, vs. the burn-your-legs, straight-up-the-hill-in-2.6 miles route from Stanford Avenue, where most folks go up. Frankly, the more direct route is vastly preferable.

The area around the college is butt ugly with a row of power line towers, the trail up from there is littered with cow crap and and there’s hardly any view of the summit to see you on your way. I usually come home with something nice to say about a hike … to rationalize the exertion, if nothing else, but this was just walking up hill, stepping around cow pies and wishing I was somewhere else.

I did get one fairly interesting picture on the way up. The two boys in this picture, being boys of their age, did find a way to amuse themselves on the way up: They were taking rocks and plopping them in the cow pies, bursting with laughs at the sight of fresh crap going every which way. Ah, to be young and amused with poop.

If you’ve done Mission Peak a few times and have been wondering about parking at Ohlone College, take my word for it: endure finding a spot at the Stanford Avenue entrance and go up with the crowds. At least you’ll have company.

Or follow Steve Sergeant’s favorite route and hike up from Sunol Wilderness. It’s 12 miles, with six all uphill, but at least you’ll feel like you’re in the country.

I spent about 20 minutes yesterday chatting with a East Bay Parks volunteer cop at Mission Peak, one of a few who carry police radios, report crimes to the real cops and try to keep fools from ruining the hillsides by taking shortcuts.

Among the things I learned:

Popularity of hiking Mission Peak has exploded in recent years. The volunteer guy did a count one weekend morning recently and noted more than 600 people were on the hill.

Break-ins at the Mission Peak parking lot have tailed off because volunteers have stepped up their patrols. However: The break-ins have merely moved to the side streets where most people have to park because the main lot is way too small. Bottom line: don’t assume your valuables are safe in your car, and never leave them in view unless you want them stolen.

Lots of beginners with no concept of outdoor stewardship are just charging up the hill, ignoring the “stay on trail” signs and making all the shortcut areas wider, uglier and, of course, more prone to erosion when the winter rains hit.

I was mostly interested in taking pretty pictures and it didn’t occur to me somebody oughta write about the mess at Mission Peak till I was done hiking. But if you head up there, you’ll see the damage straight away. All the signs are being actively ignored, and the “use trails” are as wide as the main trail in a disturbing number of places.

Most of this has happened in the past nine months. I hiked Mission Peak at least once or twice a week in the spring of 2005 and saw none of this; I hiked it less last year but I have no memory of it being so notable. I was starting to notice it this spring, but I took the summer off to avoid the heat. Yesterday was my first visit in months and I was appalled.

The volunteer guy told me an amusing story: an elementary school brought two classes of kids to the peak. He was heading up the hill on his mountain bike when he came upon a mile-long path of litter that eventually led him to the kids, and then their teachers, who were leading the way and apparently hadn’t looked backward in awhile. He stopped the teachers and said, “hey, your kids need to pick up all their trash.”

One of the teachers called out to the kids, “hey, we need to clean this up or this cop’s going to send me to jail.”

The volunteer guy was dubious: “I didn’t think they should give their kids the option of sending their teachers to jail.” Turned out there were no Bart Simpson-caliber brats among the youngsters, who never made it to the summit because they spent the rest of their outing cleaning up after themselves.

Guess that’s what they mean by “teachable moment,” eh?

OK, enough ragging on unsightly things, let’s look at some sightly ones. A weather system was moving in, which meant excellent clouds and lots of sky candy. The highlights:

The guy on the right is the volunteer park district cop. He was quite chatty (must’ve been a traveling salesman in a previous life). The folks on the left are passing hikers who stopped to chat. They’re former Arizonans who regaled me with tales of squeezing through slot canyons.

At the summit, the view of the Diablo Range to the east was wonderful.

Yes, it’s my 900th posting of the Summit Post.

Can’t believe I never noticed these rocks in all my previous trips up here.

My timing was perfect for taking a dead-tree pic. The sun hit this snag at just the right angle — complemented by nice cloud formations.

Like I said, a great day for clouds.

These holes in the rock along the Horse Heaven Trail apparently were created by the original inhabitants of this area to grind nuts and other things.

The peak looks pretty good from here.

You can see a bit of fall color in those leaves if you look real closely.

I received an e-mail this morning pointing to a history of the people who’ve lived around Mission Peak since the 1850s. At one point there was a game preserve up there, which produced this anecdote:

In approximately 1916 a hiker was traveling the trails on the Rancho unaware that there was a game park in the hills. He went around the bend of the trail he was on and came face to face with the full grown bull buffalo. At the snorting and pawing of the ground by the bull, the man turned tail and apparently ran the four to five miles down the road to Solon’s Saloon in Mission San Jose. He figured the bull was on his tail the entire way down, and he never looked back. He shared the tale of his adventures with the listeners in the bar, one of whom happened to be Donald McClure, who had stopped off from work for a beer on the way home to the Ranch. Everyone at the Rancho had a hearty laugh that evening. The bull never made a move to follow the man.

After years of grazing and being treated almost like pets, the buffalo had become more cantankerous than Moore realized. At one point the ranch hands complained about how difficult they were. To show these men how easy it was to bring in the buffalo, Moore went out one day on his own to find them. He proceeded to get chased up a tree at the age of 75. He stayed there for several hours until the ranch hands came by and rescued him. After that, the buffalo were shot and their heads mounted.

Well, it’s never been easy to be a buffalo in the West.

But anyway, if like me you’ve slogged up and down those without knowing much of the history of the place, now you can walk wiser.